Word: bia
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These days some of the highest-stakes lobbying in the nation goes on about two miles west of Capitol Hill at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The agency, which oversees Native American affairs, decides, among other things, which tribes qualify for federal recognition--and are thus entitled to build a casino and receive federal benefits. Not surprisingly, as Indian gaming has evolved from bingo halls to a multibillion-dollar industry, the number of tribes clamoring for recognition has soared: there are now 337 tribes in the lower 48 states--up almost 25% since...
...since 1993, while the volume and complexity of the petitions have grown, Congress has slashed the BIA's budget, forcing the agency to shrink its staff for handling petitions 35%, to just 11. The agency's Branch of Acknowledgment and Research (BAR) staff, which evaluates applicants on a complex range of factors, including genealogy, culture and continuous existence, is overwhelmed. The result: a November 2001 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, paints the picture of a process in disarray, calling the BIA understaffed, lacking coherent guidelines and having no clear sense of mission...
...Administration's last day in office. Three days later, on the first working day of the Bush Administration, the BAR staff discovered that Anderson had failed to sign all the documents necessary to recognize one tribe, the Duwamish of Washington State. Alerted to the omission, Anderson drove to the BIA, where an employee took the papers out to his car to be signed. The staff member, according to the Interior Department's report, then backdated the documents to Jan. 19. Anderson says politics played no role in his decision. "These tribes were well qualified to be recognized," he says. Incoming...
...didn't take the Bush Administration long to pick up where the Clintonites had left off. Last June, Bush appointees in the BIA recognized the Eastern Pequot, an amalgamation of two Connecticut tribes with casino plans that had received preliminary approval under Clinton. In the past four years, spanning both Administrations, the tribe and its investors paid $525,000 to Ronald Kaufman--a well-connected Republican lobbyist, White House political director for the first President Bush and a brother-in-law of current White House chief of staff Andrew Card--to press their case. The BIA's recognition came amid...
Sometimes having a sympathetic Administration in power isn't even necessary. When their agenda bogs down, well-connected tribes can go to friends in Congress, skirting the BIA and the regulatory process altogether. Congress recognized the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians of Indiana and Michigan in 1994. With help from a financial backer, Lyle Berman's Lakes Entertainment Inc., the tribe is on the verge of building a casino about 70 miles east of Chicago, in New Buffalo, Mich. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Virginia Republicans George Allen and John Warner have introduced a package deal for six Virginia tribes--despite...